Britain offers long-range weapons to Ukraine, as Russian artillery hammers east
By Marc Santora and Ivan Nechepurenko
LONDON – A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to attack new targets if Western nations supplied Ukraine with long-range missile systems, Britain announced Monday (6) that it would join the United States in providing the advanced weapons to help Ukraine hold off Russia’s assault in the east.
“As Russia’s tactics change, so must our support to Ukraine,” Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said in announcing that Britain would supply rocket systems that can hit targets up to 50 miles away.
President Joe Biden said last week that the United States would soon deliver a precision rocket system with a similar range, far beyond what Ukraine currently has in its arsenal, as the fighting in eastern Ukraine increasingly becomes an artillery war.
But there is a complication: Sophisticated weaponry is increasingly arriving in Ukraine from Western allies, but Ukrainian soldiers do not always know how to use it. Some have been forced to resort to Google.
Russia’s artillery advantage has been on display in the seesaw battle for Sievierodonetsk, a city that is key to controlling the entire eastern region of Donbas. Russian forces had seized a large part of the city last week after weeks of intense bombardment, but Ukrainian forces have clawed back ground in recent days in pitched street battles. On Monday, the Russians ramped up artillery attacks and erased some of the Ukrainians’ gains, Serhiy Haidai, the regional governor, said in an interview on television.
As Russia presses its campaign to seize all of Donbas, the longer-range, precision Western rockets could dent Moscow’s advantage. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, questioned whether the Ukrainian government could restrain itself as promised from using the weapons to strike targets inside Russia. The longer the range of weapons provided to Ukraine, he said at a news conference Monday, the farther back Russia will push Ukraine’s army.
In other developments:
— In an address marking the anniversary of D-Day, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew parallels between Nazi Germany’s occupation of France and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
— President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine made an unannounced visit Sunday (5) to the easternmost city controlled by his government, saluting troops in Lysychansk, which sits just across a river from Sievierodonetsk and has been under near-constant bombardment.
— Russia is trying to sell “stolen Ukrainian grain” to countries in Africa, the United States said.
— NATO and European Union nations bordering Serbia closed their airspace to Lavrov before his scheduled visit Monday, Russian state media reported, citing a ministry spokeswoman.
-New York Times
An M270 MLRS heavy rocket launcher participates in the LIST 22 live-fire Lightning Strike military exercises at the Rovajärvi training grounds on May 23, 2022 near Rovaniemi, Finland – Sean Gallup/Getty Images